Regulations:

Four years ago a friend of mine started to play music online using the platform Twitch. I asked her why Twitch and not Youtube? In the first place Twitch is a gaming platform and Youtube is more known to a broader type of audience. The choice didn’t seem logical to me. She explained to me why she made that particular choice; Twitch promises to protect the streamer when playing covers on their platform. Youtube on the contrary places all responsibility on the person who streams. In other words; on Twitch they will not kick you off the platform if you play covers and the chances that Youtube will are high. Facebook and Instagram will also not protect you. Especially when you start earning money. Even if you’replaying your own material, you must be able to prove that it’s yours, otherwise it’s still possible to get kicked off most platforms.
Read the guidelines of the platform you want to use and try to understand them (I know they are boring…). It will at least help you learn what might happen when you start streaming and how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you. As far as I know Twitch seems the safest place to be able to make music the way you want to. Because of this reason most of my findings below are pretty much based on Twitch.

Marketing:

For everything you do, online or offline (when you want to gain followers, fans, customers or however you want to call it), you need to make a plan to be able to reach them. And more importantly, you need to know how marketing works! To keep this blog simple I’m not going into detail about this subject because it’s a lot to cover. I might write another blog in the future to deal with this topic.

Equipment:

This one can be tricky. My problem as a drummer already starts with a room where I can make noise. I have neighbors. Besides that, I don’t have an extra room that is big enough to put my drum set in and mic the whole thing…. If this is not your concern and, for instance, you only want to perform with guitar and vocals, there are still some things you need to do.

You need to be able to have a good quality stream. Internet connection is one of them. Wifi is just not good enough. You need a more stable connection with a cable. (here is an article explaining high speed internet: https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/what-is-high-speed-internet).
Besides an internet connection, you need an audio interface to be able to connect your instrument(s) and microphone to your computer and a pair of headphones to avoid feedback. You’ll need a camera (a webcam is fine) and enough light in the room. When you’re considering streaming on Twitch there are several things to do before you can start. I’ve found a very helpful article to get you started: https://restream.io/blog/ultimate-guide-to-twitch.
These guidelines, especially when it’s about software and hardware, are very useful when you’re using another platform than Twitch as well!

Earning money:

I would like to explain more about earning money using streaming platforms. Like I’ve said before; the more audience you have the better the chances to earn money playing music online. You probably know that YouTubers earn money by becoming a YouTube partner and therefore earning money by advertisement. When a YouTuber is really popular a company could contact them and offer a contract. With Twitch this can also happen. Besides advertising on Twitch viewers are able to simply donate money.

There are 3 ways of donating;

• Tips: the viewer donates an amount of money of choice and it goes directly into your PayPal account.
• Bits: On Twitch viewers can use the chat to talk to other viewers and the person who streams. There are a couple of things the viewer can do to let the streamer know they like what he or she is doing. One of them is by cheering, using ‘bits’. They literally pay money to Twitch and get an amount of bits they can use to give to streamers by ‘cheering’ in the chat. Okay, this may dazzle you. In this link Twitch explains every aspect on how to cheer with bits: https://www.twitch.tv/bits
  If you still don’t understand this, go watch some music streams and you will learn  There are different types of bits and it has real money value.
• Subscribers: a viewer can subscribe to your channel and pay you money on a monthly basis for as long as they want.In both circumstances (bits and subscription) Twitch will keep half of this money to themselves when you are not a Twitch partner. Besides, they start paying you as soon as you’ve earned at least a 100 dollars. I know from experience (I’ve had a channel myself for awhile) this can take months, or more. It depends on how popular you are.

Now you’re thinking: ‘Great! Let’s start an account and let the money roll in!’ Well, it is easier said than done…. Not every viewer donates money. And to earn at least something; the longer you stream the greater your chances are. Of course the more viewers you have the better. In practice it’s a full-time job with no insurance that you’ll be able to make a living out of this. Viewers come and go. Almost no one stays on to watch your entire stream. So make sure someone sees you and hangs around for a while. You should stream for at least three hours. Five hours is more common. If you want people to come back, stream five days a week, or at least make a schedule and stick to that. And then it’s important to be patient. Most successful streamers have been doing this for at least three years before they manage to turn it into their main income.

Streaming online takes some practice. You are basically running your own tv show. But it’s totally fun and exiting! It’s best to do this with not too many expectations. Viewers don’t go watch you in order to pay you money. In fact it is just not done to ask or to beg for money. Don’t do this if this is your main goal! Though, it is possible.

There are some people I started following three years ago, who now have succeeded. They are not necessarily doing crazy things. They are simply playing the music they love and are very engaged with their audience in the chatroom.

In addition I have found out that playing covers makes it easier to grow your channel. Streamers make a song list and a viewer can request a song from this list. Make sure the list is long and keep on learning new ones. If you’d rather play your own material, maybe it’s good to combine this with some covers, at least in the beginning. Or you can choose to play your own stuff exclusively. And last but not least: You don’t have to stream alone! You can play with your band or decide to work with different guest musicians every week. It’s your party!